Back to the Main News Page

We all arrived intermittently throughout Thursday morning and convened for our first training at 2pm. The fields look great and will suit our wider channel game. We had a good run, mainly focusing on our defensive patterns, as well as our channels of attack. I must say that the team is really strong, easily the best MARFU team I have ever been a part of. We have guys who have played for the Eagles, we have an ex South African U21 captain, an ex South African 7s player, an ex Super 12 hooker (who is playing flanker here) and the list goes on. This combined with a highly organized and committed coaching team puts us in an awesome position.

We went through the usual player registration stuff last night. The US Eagles coaching panel have their annual pep talk and apparently this year they are looking for some "tough guys". Maybe they should come to Frederick.........We then dined as a team at the Golden Coral of all places. We spent some time as units, discussing individual strengths and weaknesses, and agreed on 2 key performance indicators for ourselves. We will be measured on these.

Coaches announced the starting XV for today's game against Midwest and I am happy to say that I am starting at loosehead prop. Can't wait...........That's about it for yesterday's highlights and I will let you know how we go today.

James

As you know, we beat the Mid-West in a close game on Friday, 35-31. Considering we were down 15-0 at one stage of the game, this was a good win.

Saturday comprised of a pool session in the morning and a full team practice in the afternoon. We had a little down time and then had our daily evening team meeting and video session. We prepared well for the Pacific game, knowing that we had to starve them of possession and defend well to win the game. As you now know, we did exactly that.

Sunday came and it was 78F in Orlando. Our game did not start on time, as the game preceding us went into 20 mins overtime. Pacific kicked off to us and we maintained possession for a number of phases before kicking a field goal for first points. From the next kick off, our forwards took control and we totally dominated the Pacific pack (I was playing tighthead). We rucked and mauled well, scoring three tries by mauling from our lineout. Our scrum literally smashed the much-fancied Pacific pack (wait to you see the video on www.usarugbyvision.com). We must have had their hooker airborne at least 4 or 5 times. We wheeled at will, we pinched tightheads, it was awesome. As a team we scored some good tries from phase play, both in the forwards and backs.

I was substituted with about 20 to go but my job was done. The final score of the match: MARFU 40, Pacific Coast 21.

All in all it was a great weekend. Our coaches and managers did a fantastic job and it was great to be a part of the first MARFU men’s team to win the ITT/All Star Championships.

James

Back to the Main News Page